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Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)

Minutes 12/01/05

Present 

B. Horn, R. Vaters-Carr, G. Kowalczyk, D. Weiss, R. Glinka, S. DiFrancesco, A. Abugri, B. Achhpal, N. Marano, N. Henderson, D. Marino, E. Schmidt, R. Pelayo, E. West,  N. Chrissidis, N. Disbrow, J. Fields, R. Mugno, K. Burke, C. Dellinger-Pate, J. Goralski,  S. Bochain, D. Flynn, K. Gatzke, K. Cummings, C. Novosad, R. Hunter, M. Kiarie, S. Jackson, T. Lin, J. Mielczarski, W. O'Brien, K. Laing, A. Tisbert, A. Christopherson, K. Mauro

I.          Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 9:45 a.m.

II.        Announcements

Shirley Jackson announced that Jessica Kenty-Drake of Sociology has given birth to a baby girl, Samantha Claire.
Nancy Disbrow announced that the third "Teaching with Technology" workshop will take place at 12:00 on December 5th in the Connecticut Room of Buley Library.

III. Chair's Report

The chair announced the following:

The Senate is in the process of reviewing our decision last year to extend UCF membership to Women's Studies and Liberal Studies.
The Steering Committee is still working on phrasing for the motion regarding the role of the SCC's in the curricular process.
Aya Jensen and the chair are reviewing the catalogue to ensure that UCF-approved changes are included.  They are finding some things missing, as well as finding information in the catalogue that doesn't appear to have ever gone through UCF.  They are sending memos to the departments involved.
A call has been put out for self-nominations to the General Education Task Force.  The Steering Committee is expected to have a slate of candidates to bring to the main body for approval at the next meeting, 12/15.
The following are issues we might take up during "New Business" today:
Confusion over the late withdrawal policy for courses
Plagiarism
Confusion over the transition from L-courses to W-courses

IV.       Approval of Minutes of 10/27/05

The minutes from 11/10/05 were approved, with one abstention, pending corrections, including removal of  this statement "(the standards state that either learning objectives or outcomes are acceptable)", adding the course title "Life Span Development" to the PSY 298 course under NMIC, and fixing a typo.

V.        Approval of standing committee minutes of 10/20/05

Notifications Management (NMC)

NMC minutes of 11/17/05 were accepted.

Although New course PHI 340: Political Thought I: Virtue and the Good Society and new course PHI 342: Political Thought II: Legitimacy and its Limits were presented for approval, during discussion it was discovered that the titles of the two courses were different from the titles of the two courses with which they intended to be cross-listed, PSC 340 and PSC 342.  NMC agreed to contact the necessary parties to resolve this issue and table those two motions until the next UCF meeting.

The following two motions passed unanimously:

  • Revised course PSC 321: The U. S. Legal System be approved
  • New course IDS 471: English Language Learners in the Classroom be approved

New Programs and Innovations (NPIC)

  • NPIC minutes from 11/10/05 were accepted.
  • NPIC logged the following New Special Topics courses:
  • ANT 298: Archaeological Fact/Fiction
  • PSY 398: African Prehistory
  • ECO 398: Jewish Economic History
  • MGT 498: Labor Relations Law
  • MIS 398: Special Topics in MIS
  • MIS 498: Special Topics in MIS

It was noted that more specific titles were needed for MIS 398 and 498.  Debbie Weiss said she was in the process of requesting those titles.

Program Review and Assessment (PRAC)

No report

Writing Across the Curriculum (WACC)

WACC minutes of 11/10/05 were accepted, pending the changing of SOC 263 to SOC 363.

The following motion was approved unanimously:

  • SOC 363: Social Inequality in the United States, as proposed by Fiona Pearson, and SOC 380: Foundations of Sociological Theory as proposed by Graham Cassano, be accepted as meeting the "W" course designation

University-Wide Impact Committee (UWIC)

UWIC minutes of 11/10/05 were accepted.

The following motion was approved unanimously:

  • UCF approves HIS 105, "Introduction to Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia to 1500" as an AUR

VII.     Motion from Steering Committee

The Steering Committee presented the following motion: "The UCF Steering Committee moves that the UCF form an ad hoc committee to create the document, 'Standards for Undergraduate Curriculum Proposals" as referred to in Article I.C of the Constitution"

Discussion ensued.  Nikos Chrissidis said that the history department felt strongly that existing documents should be reviewed and amended as necessary, rather than creating an entire new document. Based on this, Rachael Vaters-Carr proposed a friendly amendment.  She suggested we modify the document to read "...to review the existing documents and create..." [new text in italics].

The friendly amendment was accepted by the Steering Committee

The following amended motion was approved with one abstention:

The UCF Steering Committee moves that the UCF form an ad hoc committee to review the existing documents and create the document, "Standards for Undergraduate Curriculum Proposals" as referred to in Article I. C of the constitution.

The chair called for volunteers to serve on that committee. Rachael Vaters-Carr, Nancy Disbrow, and Melissa Kurowski volunteered.  It was suggested that faculty members outside of UCF serve.  Representatives were encouraged to ask for volunteers in their departments. 

VII.     New Business

A. Plagiarism

A discussion took place about whether or not students are sufficiently educated about plagiarism and whether or not the information available to them is clear.  Student representative Ashley Tisbert informed us that new students receive extensive training and education on plagiarism at New Student Orientation.  She said they do know.  Student representative Melissa Kurowski agreed, and pointed out that the problem has to do not with educating students, but how we deal with the consequences for offenders.  She said that because it varies from instructor to instructor it may be difficult for students to understand the consequences.   Student Representative Adam Christopherson suggested the idea of some kind of campaign, a "don't cheat" sort of reminder with posters or something to keep it fresh in the students' minds and to let them know we're serious about detecting plagiarism and the consequences.  Nikos Chrissidis reminded us that UWIC took up this issue some time ago, and it was eventually left to the Senate and Student Affairs, who were already working on it. Members expressed concern that if faculty cannot agree on the consequences, it's a problem.

B. Late Withdrawal Policy

Eric West expressed confusion over the Late Withdrawal Policy.  There were questions as to whether an instructor could grant students late withdrawals after the course was completed.  Shirley Jackson explained that at the chair's meeting, Dean Fredeen had been clear that that was not allowed.  She also said that the Dean was clear that Late Withdrawals should only be offered for "extenuating circumstances," as noted on the form, and not because a student was failing.  Members requested that, if this is the case, the Dean should send an email about this because faculty  were not aware of these policies.  The chair said he would request that she do so.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:52 a.m.

Minutes recorded by Nicole Henderson, Secretary for UCF